Devola's Stuff

[legomaestro]

Oh that`s awesome. Totally speaks to my language haha. How effective is she in combat in comparision to someone with a sword and shield? Can she solo an army?

[devola]

A little hard to say actually. She's more of a support than a powerful combatant though she does have the potential to be quite dangerous. Her brush staff isn't the most physically devastating weapon so at most she can only beat people with it (though thanks to her physical stature she is quite good at this).

QB gets very dangerous however if you give her enough time to write out the summoning symbols for the more powerful creatures. Given enough time, if she can write an entire epic or story, the monster she can summon could potentially destroy armies.

For example, if she manages to write all 7 names of the southern stars she can summon Suzaku the Vermillion Bird and scorch her enemies in devastating fire. Or the 7 names of the western stars and summon Byakko, the White Tiger who will freeze all her enemies with frostbite. Her abilities are all very rooted in Chinese mythology (I should be using the Chinese names of the Four Symbols and not their Japanese names  ).

[legomaestro]

You know Chinese or are you google translating?

Haha Byakko has always been my favourite. Always makes for great cinematics in animation and video

[Gabryel]

Hellooooo devola  Another awesome character, you are like a well of ideas! If I may, I have some suggestions on the anatomy, but before I go into details, I want to say how impressed I am by the improvement you've shown in just a few weeks!!! It is refreshing to see an artist who sets aside his ego, takes in any kind of advice or help , even the smallest hints, and focusses on improving in a modest manner like yours. I draw my hat, and when you hit any point in your project where you need help, please feel free to ask me!

At first, I just felt something is off with the ellbow and I am not quite sure if I fixed it tbh. But maybe the issue is because of the staff - the more you strech out the arm, the more difficult it seems to stay behind the staff. The hand could probarbly drawn more from the side than I did to better show where the arm is supposed to be - to the back.
Now, if you strech up your arm, the breast on that side is pulled upwards and flattened a bit - with just a small adjustment, you'll gain even more tension to the already good pose.
You like to draw poses with one leg lifted, and often that liftet thigh is a bit too short and also thinner than the other. Judging from the perspective, I'd say there is no shortening, so maybe just have the courage to draw it a bit bigger anyway, even if it feels too long at first. It's your style to draw long legs, and in some poses it can look exaggerated on the first glance, but I am positive it will balance out with the whole figure :)



I am so looking forward to see the finished products of your last posted sketches, keep up the good work, keep improving! People like you are gems amongst rocks.

[devola]

@Lego
I do not know Chinese specifically but I get the general idea behind the characters. Those characters on her sash are actually all made up from what I can vaguely remember about Chinese characters haha.

@Gabryel
Thank you Gabe, it means a lot hearing that from someone. It's a great feeling knowing I've got a lot of awesome people like you willing to help a total stranger like me and I don't want to take that opportunity for granted at all! Once again, thank you for the tips and the lines. I left it as a sketch this time so I'm looking forward to working on the finished version!

[Gabryel]

If you want to search for some correct chinese / japanese characters, try this:

http://tangorin.com/kanji/

if you enter a key word, you should find something useable; try simple things like sword, blood, red etc, that should give the cleanest results :)

[devola]

Thanks for the resource! I tried some of the Kanji and here is what I got... I'm definitely a bit worried about using real Chinese characters because of how badly I'm writing them so I might just go back to using fake ones. Anyway, here she is after applying the advice! Hope she looks better!

Spoiler

I added a few new elements to her outfit. I was listening to some Tibetan death metal while doing this so I wanted to give her a bit more "attitude". It's not shaded at the moment but the black stripes on her arms are actually tattoos. Going for that Chinese punk girl feeling with my usual fantasy anime flair, hopefully it comes across ok!

[Gabryel]

Awesoooooome *w* Especially the abdomen area, so good! As japanese speaker and reader I can tell you, your characters look just fine, keep them!

[Walter B]

The anatomy is great and that armor is awesome!

[Rusted_Gear]

Your art style definitely gives off a shounen feel. It reminds me of the art style similar to "Is it wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon?" Keep up the good work and art progression. :)

[devola]

Thanks so much everyone!

@Gabyrel
Couldn't have done it without you! I don't know if I've mentioned it enough already but I seriously appreciate all of your help 

@WalterB
I appreciate the kind words Walter, thanks for dropping by!

@Rusted_Gear
Danmachi was a fun show for me to watch! I never noticed that my art style was similar to it so that's good to know. I'm mostly influenced by Takashi Takeuchi, the artist for the Fate series and a lot of studio Trigger works so the resemblance is interesting! Thank you for the kind words.

Quick update... tried coloring again today but I got kind of bored and started doodling some stuff. Haven't done that in a while... I forgot that drawing can just be fun to pass time instead of constantly trying to push myself.

Spoiler

I know there's a part that's kind of messed up on her hair, mostly just experimenting at the moment. I don't really know what the "proper' way to color something is D:

Spoiler

This is a doodle mostly just for fun, I'm not expecting to go anywhere with this picture but I must admit I had fun drawing this. It is Estelle and QB playing guitar together, but I drew Estelle without her upper armor on. I've been meaning to do a yuri picture for these two but haven't gotten around to trying it out yet so it was actually fun being able to do something like this, even if it was just a doodle. I think I want to do more yuri stuff, for some reason I'm kind of into it.

[Shane]

I think I want to do more yuri stuff, for some reason I'm kind of into it.

SO YOU NOT THE MAN I THOUGHT YOU ARE

[Operative13]

[devola]

I think I want to do more yuri stuff, for some reason I'm kind of into it.

Caught red handed...

Spoiler

I am totally OK with this

[MahluaandMilk]

(Quirks eyebrow) Yuri, you say?